3 Internet Video Marketing Tips for Social Networking on YouTube
YouTube continues to be one of the top media destinations on the web, acquired by Google back in October 2006, YouTube is the premier destination for video content online. In the last year, Google has made significant strides to improve the service for its strong and loyal user base. In this post I’ll share Internet video marketing tips that YouTube users and consumers alike can use to boost traffic and interest.
3 Internet Video Marketing Tips for Social Networking on YouTube
Important Note: You don’t have to upload any videos to benefit from what YouTube has to offer. Using the social networking features, can set you apart, resulting in targeted visitors to your site.
Be Friendly
YouTube is yet another social network. With features like friending, rating, favoriting and more, as with any social network, used effectively these Internet video marketing tips can boost exposure while fitting into your social marketing strategy.
Rate
I recently used YouTube to research how to shoot HD video screen-cams. I plugged in a few keywords, and was amazed what I found! There were several videos on the very topic, walking me through how to do it step by step.
Make it a habit to rate any video you watch to the end. It seem the rating is anonymous and is an opportunity to give feedback to the publisher. For the helpful video I found, I rated it 5 stars. Remember, while some may not be video experts, they may have expertise to share so, don’t be too harsh, rate not video quality alone, but the quality of the information shared.
Favorite
For me, I knew I would need that video in the future, or need to share it with someone else at some point. That is where favoriting comes in. Like bookmarking, if you like a video and know you’ll refer to it in the future, favorite it by clicking on the link below the video. This will show up in your recent activity feed, and let the producer know that you found it valuable.
Add A Friend
As with many social networks friending (in one form or another) is a core feature. This is also available for YouTube users. At the moment it is a bit of an innocuous button on the left hand side of a YouTube users channel page. Once a friend request is accepted, you can now message them inside of YouTube. From one of my friend requests: “Becoming friends makes it easier to keep track of what your friends are favoriting, uploading, or rating, and makes it easier to share public or private videos.”
What Are Your Thoughts?
There is much more to YouTube than this and truthfully, these Internet video marketing tips for YouTube are designed to get you moving in the right direction, and only scrape the surface when it comes to using YouTube effectively as a part of a social marketing strategy.
Discussion: Have an account at YouTube? What are some ways you are using YouTube for marketing? How have you observed others using it to extend their reach? Chime in using the comment boxes below.
*Image credits to fczuardi
Layla on 
DrBermant on 
Sirhcnus on 
Jeff on 
Facebook
Plaxo
LinkedIn
YouTube
Twitter
Skype
Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. I'm here to share what I can from my lessons marketing online. With sizeable investments in continuing education, various software products and services, I have had some winners, and some losers. One way I can extend what I've learned is by writing about it, here... and helping you along the way.
Never would have considered using YouTube to generate traffic…great idea! Have you found a certain length of video to be better than another? It seems like there would be a fine line between offering too much information that your viewers are bored and not enough that they find enough value in it!
Amanda-
I think that if you have a video beyond 4 minutes you need to have really good content. While I’ll never win an oscar, I’ve found the more you do it the easier it comes. And yes, it does serve as a great traffic generator.
I like the fact that you don’t even have to upload any videos to be an effective social networker on YouTube.
-Travis
PS: Click on the YouTube link
in the Online Connections section
at the bottom of this page to check out
the MarketingProfessor.com YouTube
Channel.
Good points – still figuring out how best to use the social media/friends side of Youtube but it seems to be growing all the time – witness the fact that there seem to be hundreds of competitor video sites springing up!
Need to go an make some friends on Youtube…!
Jerry Smith’s last blog post..Marketing Hockey Stick
Jerry-
It IS powerful. I think it is worth studying what Google is doing with their properties, and how they are socializing them. Should be interesting to see these things unfold. Who else considering marketing with YouTube?